Criticism of donald trump. The display of ignorance of World Affairs or a cavalier attitude. Back here, trump rally in attitude leads to more clashes. And Hillary Clinton on the defensive once again over her emails after a state Department Report comes down hard. And doubling down. A year aftermath pedaled more than 200 miles for red nose day, people across the country and right here on our plaza are getting in on the action this morning. Were hoping to hit 10,000 miles by the time this show is over. Today, thursday, may 26th, 2016. Announcer from nbc news, this is today with matt lauer and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. And good morning, everybody. Welcome to today on this thursday morning. I hope your saddle is all ready, the red nose one. Aches and i just got over red nose day one. I was alone for that trip. Look at all the people joining us this morning here on the plaza as cycling center, soul cycle centers all over the country. In the 8 00 half hour well be on the bikes. Thats right. So stand by for panting. Exactly right. In the meantime, president obama really did have strong words for donald trump. You just heard a small portion. He went on from there. Well show you more of that coming up. First, lets get to our top story. Severe weather and tornadoes ravageing parts of the midwest overnight. Lets go to Gabe Gutierrez in abilene, very hard hit. Good morning. Reporter savannah, good morning. Slowmoving storm barreling down on the small town of chatman, devastated by another tornado in 2008. Thankfully, this tornado swrled to the south, town. Now, residents are describing terrifying moments. Assessing the damage after a monster tornado. Big, big tornado. Big tornado. Reporter the National Weather service calling this a potential catastrophic twister, half a mile while, chewing through dickinson county, kansas, barely missing the small town of chapman but leaving a trail of destruction. The tornado on the ground more than an hour, damaging at least 15 homes. Thats a barn sitting in the road, folks. Reporter sheer Power Lifting entire structures. There have been 55 reported tornadoes spanning six states over the past 48 hours. Near dodge city, kansas, tuesday, this twister tossed cars and obliterated home. It seems surreal. Also picking up the pieces. Beth roberts rushed into her cellar with only moments to spare. If you had waited a few more minutes we would have been sucked out it was just like a loud, rumble, roaring, humming noise, something ive never heard in my entire li. Reporter blamed for one death in oklahoma, leslie kemp barely survived with a 2yearold. Trees were falling around the house. I grabbed my son and we got in the inner part of the house and we rode out the tornado. Reporter today, the heartland, bracing for the potential of Severe Weather again. Remarkably, this tornado claim nod lives. The threat isnt over yet. The potential for tornadoes later today and here in kansas and nebraska. Guys, back to you. Gabe, thank you. What are they facing . The problem is, yesterday we had really a slight risk. Today we have an enhanced risk. There is the potential for much more Severe Weather today. And its going to last into tonight. And thats when we really get concerned. Overnight storms are the worst coming. From minneapolis all the way down to st. Louis, strong storms firing up. For today, from sioux falls to del rio, risk. Enhanced risk, great bend. 20 Million People under risk. Greatest threats from southern nebraska to kansas. Tomorrow, Oklahoma City to corpus christi, another severe risk. Damaging winds, isolated tornadoes. Well watch this fire up. Around 11 00 this evening between san angelo and dallas, strong storms. Thats what were really worried about. It continues into friday. Dallas and houston in the storm threat there, and all the way up to Oklahoma City. Rainfall is also going to be a problem from minneapolis, kansas city, all the way down into central texas. Some areas could be picking up six to eight inches of rain. So, flash flooding will be a threat as well. Keep an eye on that. You bet. Thank you very much. Now to the search for solutions to those long ts alines at airports as the busy Summer Travel season is about to really get under way. The man who runs the agency, Vice PresidentPeter Neffenger, was on capitol hill answering questions. This morning he is with us for an exclusive interview. First, tom costello is at Reagan National airport with the very latest. Tom, good morning. Reporter hi, savannah. Good morning. American airlines will Tell Congress today that 70,000 of its customers have miss thaed t flights so far. Thats just american. 40,000 bags have not made their connections. Tsa says its making big progress but its still 4,000 to 5,000 officers short. Facing fedup members of congress, chief Peter Neffenger on the hot seat wednesday. I think youre a good man, competent man who has been given an impossible task. Critical failure. Reporter wait times have stretched to two hours, three in chicago last incident in my opinion. Reporter anger that a now demoted assistant administrator was paid 90,000 and merit bonuses even as screeners were failing undercover audits. I cant justify the level of bonuses provided in the past. I can tell you i stopped that. Reporter anger that tsa officers are leading airports to help the secret Service Screen audience at political events. Where is the priority of supporting these events that have nothing to do with the core mission . I would like to be fully focused on my core mission. Reporter staffing problems are serious, 2,500 fewer screeners than in 2011, even though passenger volume has surged by more than 100 million. Converting part timers to full time, adding more dog teams and relying on Airline Staffers to move lines along. Those long lines may only get worse over the summer. And there are many reasons for this. Among them, tsa up appropriately when they have record volumes of people coming. They expected more people to sign up for tsa precheck than actually signed up. They had part timers quitting because theyre frustrated with the job, monotony and also not getting fulltime work. Thank you, tom. Peter neffenger is the chief of tsa. Good morning. Good morning. Tom set up well. These lines didnt develop overnight. Somebody had to see this coming with low fares attracting more travelers, with people taking things through screening sites that they werent taking through in years past and with staffing problems. Did you do enough to avoid the problems when you first saw them coming . When i came in last summer we were on the heels of we were in a real crisis, generated by the inspector general. So we had to get better on our mission and really focused on going to cause the lines to back up. Why is that . Because we had to slow down a bit. We werent paying close enough attention. And i shifted a lot of people back into the standard lines following an unsafe practice of moving people in. I think thats the other big part of this. People might not mind waiting in a line if they didnt also read that when federal inspectors went in there, those screening tests failed 95 of the time. Just kind of adds insult to injury, doesnt it . As i said, we had to get better at our mission. Its a Critical Mission and were in a pretty high threat environment. You have to make sure youre able to do the thing youre hired to do, which is protect the aviation system. Its life and death. One thing, admiral neffenger, that worried me, there were reports into your agency that when employees of yours report security breaches, that in some ways theyre punished for it, reassigned or transferred. That ct see something, say something. Uhhuh. You cant have tsa employees afraid to see something and say something. I agree completely. One of the things ive been trying to do over the past year that ive been here is a fundamental transformation of the way we think internally, the way we treat our people and the way we encourage people to come forward. Its unacceptable to take action against people who are just trying to bring forward good ideas. Will you guarantee that will not happen in the future . It will not happen. Ive made a lot of changes to our personnel policies and practices and spent a lot of time reaching out to people to understand whats going on. A lot of people go to the airport. They see your agency i mean its a federal agency that everybody sees. And a lot of times they wonder, would it just be easier if a private company came in here and did this work . Whats your argument to that . Let me start by saying the security of this nation is a national responsibility, federal responsibility. No matter how you do it system to ensure consistency and high standards. We currently have a system that allows an airport to request a private contractor. Its important to remember that contractor is still contracted to the tsa, to the federal government. And that goes back to that need to have federal oversight. You need to be able to pay people more, dont you . Average tsa worker makes about 30,000 a year. Thats about the same as a manager at mcdonalds. Nothing against the people at mcdonalds. But shouldnt a guy or a woman responsible for keeping a bomb, a gun or knife off a plane be paid more and does Congress Need to loosen up the Purse Strings so you can pay these people more . Well, first, thank you for recognizing the front line of some of the most dedicated people ive seen. They deserve our thanks every time we see them. And they deserve more money . I would like to see pay and benefits reform across the system. Are the airlines doing enough . Dh secretary asked the airlines to wave those baggage fees, if people check more bags, lines will go faster and essentially they said no, ive been working closely with all the major u. S. Airlines and theyve done a tremendous amount to help us in recent weeks, hiring contract staff to carry out nonsecurity related duties, running the bins back and forth and helping people remember to take the right things off as they move through the line. If they dropped those fees, would lines get shorter . What im focused on is getting people moving efficiently through. If they could help us enforce the one plus one rule thats very important. If you can reduce checkpoints with all due respect, if they dropped those first bagged fees, would the lines get shorter . I dont know that theres a direct correlation between that. There is a direct correlation between people carrying prohibited items through the checkpoint and long lines at the checkpoint. Should they expect long lines to continue . This summer should they come two to three hours early . Were travel volume again. More than in 2013. That said, we put a lot of measures in place and really focusing on most airports are really good. Its the top 20 airports where youre seeing the biggest challenge. Were putting a lot of resource in those airports and i hope youll see youll see long lines but move efficiently through the system. Youre good to join us this morning. Thank you. A lot of people counting on you and your employees. Thank you. President obama is weighing in on the president ial race in a big way, speaking at a summit in japan. The president is hammering donald trump and his policies and weighing in on the democratic side of things as well. Here at home a trump rally has led to clashes between protesters and police for a second straight day. Decision 2016 team is on the story again. Lets start with nbcs hallie jackson. Hallie, good morning. Reporter hi, savannah. Good morning. As people line up for Donald Trumps rally here in montana, the candidate is democrats, but president obama is clearly willing to take on trump himself on offense overseas. President obama in japan this morning, unleashing his harshest criticism yet on donald trump and how hes viewed by world leaders. They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements, but theyre rattled by him, and for good reason. Reporter calling out the republican frontrunner for his knowledge of international affairs. Impulses that he has made display either ignorance of World Affairs or a cavalier attitu attitude, or an interest in, or attitude, or an interest in getting tweets and headlines rather than thinking through what it is required to keep america safe and prosperous and reporter comments just hours after new clashes between protesters and trump supporters, this time in anaheim. Intense Police Presence outside his rallies. Inside, trump takes aim at a different target. I was being hit by pocahontas. Elizabeth warren, i call her goofy. Reporter trump, blasting massachusetts senator elizabeth warren, who is delivering some of the democrats most biting attacks against him. A small, insecure, money grubber. Reporter she has a big mouth and thats about it. But they used her because hillary is trying to be very president ial. Reporter and on Hillary Clinton, trump, pressed by jimmy kimmel overnight. In 2008 i want to get this right. You said you thought hillary would make an excellent president and as recently as 2012, you said you thought she was terrific. What did she do . What happened . Let me just explain to you. Yeah. I will tell you. When im a businessman i speak well of everybody. If people ask politicians, i speak well. When people ask me about hillary, shes wonderful. Everybody is wonderful. So you were full of [ bleep ] when you said that . I was. The weeknd and belly canceling on kimmel because they didnt want to share the stage with trump. But a look at whats to come. A Campaign Adviser asking the Republican National committee for research on the Clintons Whitewater real estate scandal, quote, for immediate use. The problem . A trump spokeswoman also unintentionally sent it to a reporter for politico. And now a new staff shakeup for the campaign. A top adviser working to put boots on the ground in battleground states. Unexpectedly let go. All of it as trump now says he would be willing to debate Bernie Sanders for charity. Sanders response . Game on. Tweeting overnight, he looks forward to debating trump in california before the june 7th by the way, bernie trump debate trending online overnight. Hallie jackson, thank you. Now to Hillary Clinton, an email scandal that just wont go away. Blistering new review of her use of a private server. Nbcs Andrea Mitchell has that part of the story. Andrea, good morning to you. Reporter the state Department Reports, matt, undercuts key arguments that Hillary Clinton has been making for more than a year even as shes trying to persuade voters that she is not untrustworthy. Hillary clinton, grappling with the growing political fallout over her emails from her rival, donald trump. Crooked hillary. Inspector generals report, not good. Reporter to Bernie Sanders, who once defended clinton over the email controversy. The American People are South Carolina and tired of hearing about your damn emails. Reporter Sanders Campaign now refusing to throw clinton a lifeline saying the ig report speaor only using a private home email server as secretary of state. The key findings, no evidence clinton requested or obtained permission to use a private server. And the report says clinton violated federal rules by not turning overall official emails before she left office, con concluding sending emails from a personal account to other employees is not an appropriate method of preserving emails. Despite clinton telling nbc news her system was fully above board. People knew i was using a personal email. I did it for convenience. I sent emails that i thought were work related to people peoples. Gov accounts. Reporter the report also reveals a new email sxang between clinton and her top aide, huma abedein as to whether she could provide her private address on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam. Clintons response . Lets get separate address or device but i dont want any risk of the personal being accessible. The report also called the private Server Security into question. Shut down twice in 2011 after clintons Computer Security adviser feared it had been hacked. Later warning abedein not to email clinton anything sensitive. Paul ryan says it under scores what we already know about Hillary Clinton. She simply cant be trusted. Clinton responded telling univision i have turned overall my emails. No one else can say that. I have been incredibly open about doing that. I will continue to be open and its not an issue that will affect either the campaign or my presidency. Clinton was the only former secretary of state refusing to be interviewed by the was more important to talk first to the fbi, to the Justice Department also investigating. Theyve not yet scheduled that interview. Matt, savannah and al . Andrea, thank you very much. Lets turn back to al and get the rest of your forecast. Good news is that were looking at pretty nice weather across both sides of the its simple just get your red nose, only at walgreens, and get your silly on, seriously. Time is running out. Get your red nose today at walgreens. Thats your latest weather. Matt . Al, thank you very much. Coming up, a new twist tied to the murder of a popular Fitness Instructor at a church in texas. Who is sending new friend requests from her facebook account . And from one mansion to another, first familys post white house digs in washington. First this i